My E85 Experience

My '04 Explorer is a flexible fuel vehicle, meaning it can run on E85.
I've been waiting for years for a gas station to stock E85 so I can
try it. Well, I finally found a station near where I work
(Schaumburg, Il) that has E85, so I tried a couple of tank fulls.

Pro's:
Car ran absolutely great! Its 105 octane. The idle was so smooth you
couldnt tell the engine was running. It also seemed to have a bit more
pep, but that may have been my imagination. Upon first starting up in
the morning, the car exhaust smells like alchohol

Con's
It's still horribly inconvienent to use. The gas station is still out
of the way for me to fill up and they did everything they could to
discourage people from buying it. Only a single pump, with a teeny
weeny little sign on it about 3 inches square proclaiming its E85. I
had to go in and ask where the pump was. It was also pre-pay instead
of accepting a charge card.

More Con's
Regular gas was going for $3.19 at the time, E85 was $2.99, so I saved
20 cents a gallon, 6%. But my gas mileage went from about 18 mpg to
13 mpg on the first E85 fill up and 15 mpg on the second E85 fill up.
So I saved 6% on fuel costs but had a 17 - 28% decrease in fuel
efficiency. BTW, everything I read said to expect a 5 to 15% decrease
in mpg so I obviously greatly exceeded that. Not exactly cost
efficient. Mileage went back up to 18 mpg on the next regular gas
fillup.

I did two tank fulls then went back to regular gas. I couldn't afford
E85.

Illinois does have an E85 rebate program,
http://www.illinoisgreenfleets.org/fuels/index.html, which will send
you a check for up to $450 if you use E85 for more than half your
fuel, but it seems to me that proving you used it for half your fuel
would be a bit problematic. So this would help with the cost but with
a corresponding big increase in paperwork hassle.

Summary
Car ran great
Costs too much
Transition between fuels was invisible
Not ready for primetime until the price comes down.

dickm



..

Why would "proving you used it for half your fuel would be problematic"?
If you keep receipts reflecting date, gallons/liters, and cost per
gallon/liter there should be no problem proving this, provided you
actually use the alternative more than fifty percent of the time.

Good luck and thank you for posting your experience with E85,

Steven

dicko wrote:

>
> Illinois does have an E85 rebate program,
> http://www.illinoisgreenfleets.org/fuels/index.html, which will send
> you a check for up to $450 if you use E85 for more than half your
> fuel, but it seems to me that proving you used it for half your fuel
> would be a bit problematic. So this would help with the cost but with
> a corresponding big increase in paperwork hassle.
>
> dickm

Its just that they have no idea how many times you filled up with
regular gas. You would have to send in receipts for both E85 and
regular fill ups, and then you could just withhold enough of the
regular receipts to make it look like the E85 was half your purchases.

I guess it just seems like a process thats ripe for fraud.

But in any case, I wont be availing myself of the rebate since I only
had 2 tank fulls :-)

dickm


On Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:14:05 GMT, Steven Hilgendorf
> wrote:

>Why would "proving you used it for half your fuel would be problematic"?
> If you keep receipts reflecting date, gallons/liters, and cost per
>gallon/liter there should be no problem proving this, provided you
>actually use the alternative more than fifty percent of the time.
>
>Good luck and thank you for posting your experience with E85,
>
>Steven
>
>dicko wrote:
>
>>
>> Illinois does have an E85 rebate program,
>> http://www.illinoisgreenfleets.org/fuels/index.html, which will send
>> you a check for up to $450 if you use E85 for more than half your
>> fuel, but it seems to me that proving you used it for half your fuel
>> would be a bit problematic. So this would help with the cost but with
>> a corresponding big increase in paperwork hassle.
>>
>> dickm

E85 is a crock anyway. Besides the significantly decreased mileage, it
isn't any more environmentally friendly than plain old petrol, and may
actually be worse. Most of E85 comes from corn which requires pesticides,
herbicides, and fertilizers made from petroleum to make it grow. Then fuel
is burned planting, harvesting, hauling, and potentially processing all that
corn into ethanol. The US government also subsidizes every bushel corn
grown in this country to the tune of around $1.25 a bushel. Studies show
that it actually takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you
get when you burn it. If you want an authoritative analysis, the most
recent issue of consumer reports has a cover story about E85.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/c...anol_ov1_1.htm




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

If you 'withhold' receipts then wouldn't the date range be skewed )
Sorry, I'm an Accountant and it's just my auditing skills messing around
here ) You are right though, depending how strict they are.

Thanks again for the information,

Steven

dicko wrote:
> Its just that they have no idea how many times you filled up with
> regular gas. You would have to send in receipts for both E85 and
> regular fill ups, and then you could just withhold enough of the
> regular receipts to make it look like the E85 was half your purchases.
>
> I guess it just seems like a process thats ripe for fraud.
>
> But in any case, I wont be availing myself of the rebate since I only
> had 2 tank fulls :-)
>
> dickm
>
>
> On Fri, 08 Sep 2006 14:14:05 GMT, Steven Hilgendorf
> > wrote:
>
>> Why would "proving you used it for half your fuel would be problematic"?
>> If you keep receipts reflecting date, gallons/liters, and cost per
>> gallon/liter there should be no problem proving this, provided you
>> actually use the alternative more than fifty percent of the time.
>>
>> Good luck and thank you for posting your experience with E85,
>>
>> Steven
>>
>> dicko wrote:
>>
>>> Illinois does have an E85 rebate program,
>>> http://www.illinoisgreenfleets.org/fuels/index.html, which will send
>>> you a check for up to $450 if you use E85 for more than half your
>>> fuel, but it seems to me that proving you used it for half your fuel
>>> would be a bit problematic. So this would help with the cost but with
>>> a corresponding big increase in paperwork hassle.
>>>
>>> dickm
>